Press release 13/3/06
The Psychology Wiki is open for contributions Psychology Wiki Based on the software that runs Wikipedia, The Psychology Wiki now has over 5500 pages with work underway on 3500 articles in all areas of psychology What's a wiki? I hear you ask. It’s a new kind of web page that is editable by anyone with access to the Internet. I is so quick and easy to use the called it wiki after the Hawaiian for quick. Wikipedia is the most widely known of the new knowledge bases constructed out of these pages. Thousands of ordinary people around the world have contributed to the encyclopaedia, and they now have over 1 million pages and receive 300,0000 hits a day. A recent study by Nature revealed that Wikipedia was more accurate that Encyclopaedia Britannica when judged by a sample of scientific articles. See: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html. The Psychology Wiki aims to develop a collaborative site where, as a scientific and practitioner community, we can build a clear consolidated statement of knowledge, theory and practice in our subject area. Articles written on every area in psychology, all fully referenced, will now be available on the desktop. All significant references will be included and each reference linked externally to either a full copy, or at least the summaries available on MEDLINE databases. Within the articles all terms will be linked to explanatory pages. Lecture handouts, overheads and other academic support materials accompany each area covered. Any newly published work can be added, articles updated etc so that it remains a current reflection of the field. Trainees will have free access to the widest of current research on any topic, and lecturers will be free from the basic routine of developing materials. Wikipedia has been translated into over 200 languages. By translating the site into a broad range of languages we are establishing an international base for the development of our science and opening fresh avenues for cultural exchange. How can you help? Visit the site. Use the help and orientation sections to learn the simple instructions and start editing and contributing. The To Do section will give you some ideas or you can go to the community portal for further support. That's the bottom up approach. The top down approach requires the professional bodies around the globe to sanction the prioritising of our wiki work. An important innovation is that once people have gone through the simple procedure of setting up an account, all their work is logged and can be printed out for CPD purposes. What is needed is the development of policies to foster the enterprise. This needs opinion formers, journal editors, special interest group members, and board members of societies etc to coordinate responses to the challenge. Some support materials are available in the site support section but of course the beauty of this is that as you develop your own you can put them up on the site for others to use. Dr Joe Kiff, Psychology Wiki's founder, said, "In 10 years time we will have amassed over a 1,000,000 pages, being accessed by 250,000 psychologists around the globe. The psychology community can rise to the task and reap the long term reward for our efforts." Visit The Psychology Wiki today. Date: 13th March, 2006 Contact: Dr Joe Kiff etc